Hispania Baetica
Encyclopedia
Hispania Baetica was one of three Imperial Roman province
s in Hispania
, (modern Iberia
). Hispania Baetica was bordered to the west by Lusitania
, and to the northeast by Hispania Tarraconensis
. Baetica was part of Al-Andalus
under the Moors
in the 8th century and approximately corresponds to modern Andalucia. Its capital was Corduba
Before Romanization, the mountainous area that was to become Baetica was occupied by several settled Iberian tribal groups. Celt
ic influence was not as strong as it was in the Celtiberian
north. According to the geographer Claudius Ptolemy
, the indigenes were the powerful Turdetani
, in the valley of the Guadalquivir
in the west, bordering on Lusitania
, and the partly Hellenized Turduli
with their city Baelon, in the hinterland behind the coastal Phoenician trading colonies, whose Punic inhabitants Ptolemy termed the "Bastuli". Phoenician Gadira (Cadiz
) was on an island against the coast of Hispania Baetica. Other important Iberians were the Bastetani
, who occupied the Almería
and mountainous Granada
regions. Towards the southeast, Punic influence spread from the Carthaginian
cities on the coast: New Carthage (Roman Cartago Nova, modern Cartagena
), Abdera
and Malaca (Málaga
).
Some of the Iberian cities retained their pre-Indo-European
names in Baetica throughout the Roman era. Granada
was called Eliberri, Illiberis and Illiber by the Romans; in Basque
, "iri-berri" or "ili-berri", still signifies "new town".
The south of the Iberian peninsula was agriculturally rich, providing for export wine
, olive oil
and the fermented fish sauce called garum
that were staples of the Mediterranean diet, and its products formed part of the western Mediterranean trade economy even before it submitted to Rome in 206 BC. After the defeat of Carthage
in the Second Punic War
, which found its casus belli
on the coast of Baetica at Saguntum, Hispania was significantly Romanized in the course of the 2nd century BC, following the uprising initiated by the Turdetani
in 197. The central and north-eastern Celtiberians
soon followed suit. It took Cato the Elder
, who became consul in 195 BC and was given the command of the whole peninsula to put down the rebellion in the northeast and the lower Ebro
valley. He then marched southwards and put down a revolt by the Turdetani. Cato returned to Rome in 194, leaving two praetor
s in charge of the two Iberian provinces. In the late Roman Republic
, Hispania remained divided like Gaul
into a "Nearer" and a "Farther" province, as experienced marching overland from Gaul: Hispania Citerior (the Ebro region), and Ulterior (the Guadalquivir region). The battles in Hispania during the 1st century BC were largely confined to the north.
In the reorganization of the Empire in 14 BC, when Hispania was remade into the three Imperial province
s, Baetica was governed by a proconsul
who had formerly been a praetor
. Fortune smiled on rich Baetica, which was Baetica Felix, and a dynamic, upwardly-mobile social and economic middling stratum developed there, which absorbed freed slaves and far outnumbered the rich elite
. The Senatorial province of Baetica became so secure that no Roman legion
was required to be permanently stationed there. Legio VII Gemina was permanently stationed to the north, in Hispania Tarraconensis
.
Hispania Baetica was divided into four conventūs, which were territorial divisions like judicial circuits, where the chief men met together at major centers, at fixed times of year, under the eye of the proconsul, to oversee the administration of justice: the conventus Gaditanus (of Gades, or Cádiz
), Cordubensis (of Cordoba
), Astigitanus (of Astigi, or Écija
), and Hispalensis (of Hispalis, or Seville
). As the towns became the permanent seats of standing courts during the later Empire, the conventūs
were superseded (Justinian's Code, i.40.6) and the term conventus is lastly applied to certain bodies of Roman citizens living in a province, forming a sort of enfranchised corporation, and representing the Roman people in their district as a kind of gentry
; and it was from among these that proconsuls generally took their assistants. So in spite of some social upsets, as when Septimus Severus put to death a number of leading Baetians— including women— the elite in Baetica remained a stable class for centuries.
Columella
, who wrote a twelve volume treatise on all aspects of Roman farming and knew viticulture
, came from Baetica. The vast olive
plantations of Baetica shipped olive oil from the coastal ports by sea to supply Roman legions in Germania
. Amphora
s from Baetica have been found everywhere in the Western Roman empire
. It was to keep Roman legions supplied by sea routes that the Empire needed to control the distant coasts of Lusitania and the northern Atlantic coast
of Hispania.
Baetica was rich and utterly Romanized, facts that the Emperor Vespasian
was rewarding when he granted the Ius latii
that extended the rights pertaining to Roman citizenship (latinitas
) to the inhabitants of Hispania, an honor that secured the loyalty of the Baetian elite and its middle class. The Roman Emperor Trajan
, the first emperor of provincial birth, came from Baetica, though of Italian stock, and his kinsman and successor Hadrian
came from a family resident in Baetica, though Hadrian himself was born at Rome (which however some say he made up Hadrian#cite note-5). Baetia was Roman until the brief invasion of the Vandals and Alans
passed through in the 5th century, followed by the more permanent kingdom of the Visigoth
s. The province formed part of the Exarchate of Africa
and was joined to Mauretania Tingitana
after Belisarius
' reconquest of Africa. The Catholic bishop
s of Baetica, solidly backed by their local population, were able to convert the Arian
Visigoth king Reccared
and his nobles. In the 8th century the Islam
ic Berbers
("Moors") of North Africa
established the Caliphate of Cordoba
conquering Baetica. The region was known to them as "al-Andalus", under which name its later history is continued.
The early 20th century composer Manuel de Falla
wrote a Fantasia Baetica for piano
, using Andalusian melodies.
Roman province
In Ancient Rome, a province was the basic, and, until the Tetrarchy , largest territorial and administrative unit of the empire's territorial possessions outside of Italy...
s in Hispania
Hispania
Another theory holds that the name derives from Ezpanna, the Basque word for "border" or "edge", thus meaning the farthest area or place. Isidore of Sevilla considered Hispania derived from Hispalis....
, (modern Iberia
Iberian Peninsula
The Iberian Peninsula , sometimes called Iberia, is located in the extreme southwest of Europe and includes the modern-day sovereign states of Spain, Portugal and Andorra, as well as the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar...
). Hispania Baetica was bordered to the west by Lusitania
Lusitania
Lusitania or Hispania Lusitania was an ancient Roman province including approximately all of modern Portugal south of the Douro river and part of modern Spain . It was named after the Lusitani or Lusitanian people...
, and to the northeast by Hispania Tarraconensis
Hispania Tarraconensis
Hispania Tarraconensis was one of three Roman provinces in Hispania. It encompassed much of the Mediterranean coast of Spain along with the central plateau. Southern Spain, the region now called Andalusia, was the province of Hispania Baetica...
. Baetica was part of Al-Andalus
Al-Andalus
Al-Andalus was the Arabic name given to a nation and territorial region also commonly referred to as Moorish Iberia. The name describes parts of the Iberian Peninsula and Septimania governed by Muslims , at various times in the period between 711 and 1492, although the territorial boundaries...
under the Moors
Moors
The description Moors has referred to several historic and modern populations of the Maghreb region who are predominately of Berber and Arab descent. They came to conquer and rule the Iberian Peninsula for nearly 800 years. At that time they were Muslim, although earlier the people had followed...
in the 8th century and approximately corresponds to modern Andalucia. Its capital was Corduba
Before Romanization, the mountainous area that was to become Baetica was occupied by several settled Iberian tribal groups. Celt
Celt
The Celts were a diverse group of tribal societies in Iron Age and Roman-era Europe who spoke Celtic languages.The earliest archaeological culture commonly accepted as Celtic, or rather Proto-Celtic, was the central European Hallstatt culture , named for the rich grave finds in Hallstatt, Austria....
ic influence was not as strong as it was in the Celtiberian
Celtiberians
The Celtiberians were Celtic-speaking people of the Iberian Peninsula in the final centuries BC. The group used the Celtic Celtiberian language.Archaeologically, the Celtiberians participated in the Hallstatt culture in what is now north-central Spain...
north. According to the geographer Claudius Ptolemy
Ptolemy
Claudius Ptolemy , was a Roman citizen of Egypt who wrote in Greek. He was a mathematician, astronomer, geographer, astrologer, and poet of a single epigram in the Greek Anthology. He lived in Egypt under Roman rule, and is believed to have been born in the town of Ptolemais Hermiou in the...
, the indigenes were the powerful Turdetani
Turdetani
The Turdetani were ancient people of the Iberian peninsula , living in the valley of the Guadalquivir in what was to become the Roman Province of Hispania Baetica...
, in the valley of the Guadalquivir
Guadalquivir
The Guadalquivir is the fifth longest river in the Iberian peninsula and the second longest river to be its whole length in Spain. The Guadalquivir is 657 kilometers long and drains an area of about 58,000 square kilometers...
in the west, bordering on Lusitania
Lusitania
Lusitania or Hispania Lusitania was an ancient Roman province including approximately all of modern Portugal south of the Douro river and part of modern Spain . It was named after the Lusitani or Lusitanian people...
, and the partly Hellenized Turduli
Turduli
The Turduli were an ancient Celtiberian tribe of Lusitania, akin to the Lusitanians. They lived in the south of modern Portugal, in the east of the province of Alentejo, along the Guadiana valley , and Extremadura proper...
with their city Baelon, in the hinterland behind the coastal Phoenician trading colonies, whose Punic inhabitants Ptolemy termed the "Bastuli". Phoenician Gadira (Cadiz
Cádiz
Cadiz is a city and port in southwestern Spain. It is the capital of the homonymous province, one of eight which make up the autonomous community of Andalusia....
) was on an island against the coast of Hispania Baetica. Other important Iberians were the Bastetani
Bastetani
The Bastetani or Bastuli were an ancient Iberian people of the Iberian peninsula . They are believed to have spoken the Iberian language....
, who occupied the Almería
Almería (province)
-History:The rich customs and Fiestas of the denizens retain links deep into the past, unto the Moors, the Romans, the Greeks, and the Phoenicians.During the taifa era, it was ruled by the Moor Banu al-Amiri from 1012 to 1038, briefly annexed by Valencia , then given by Zaragoza to the Banu Sumadih...
and mountainous Granada
Granada
Granada is a city and the capital of the province of Granada, in the autonomous community of Andalusia, Spain. Granada is located at the foot of the Sierra Nevada mountains, at the confluence of three rivers, the Beiro, the Darro and the Genil. It sits at an elevation of 738 metres above sea...
regions. Towards the southeast, Punic influence spread from the Carthaginian
Carthage
Carthage , implying it was a 'new Tyre') is a major urban centre that has existed for nearly 3,000 years on the Gulf of Tunis, developing from a Phoenician colony of the 1st millennium BC...
cities on the coast: New Carthage (Roman Cartago Nova, modern Cartagena
Cartagena, Spain
Cartagena is a Spanish city and a major naval station located in the Region of Murcia, by the Mediterranean coast, south-eastern Spain. As of January 2011, it has a population of 218,210 inhabitants being the Region’s second largest municipality and the country’s 6th non-Province capital...
), Abdera
Abdera, Spain
Abdera was an ancient seaport town on the south coast of Spain, between Malaca and Carthago Nova , in the district inhabited by the Bastuli....
and Malaca (Málaga
Málaga
Málaga is a city and a municipality in the Autonomous Community of Andalusia, Spain. With a population of 568,507 in 2010, it is the second most populous city of Andalusia and the sixth largest in Spain. This is the southernmost large city in Europe...
).
Some of the Iberian cities retained their pre-Indo-European
Indo-European languages
The Indo-European languages are a family of several hundred related languages and dialects, including most major current languages of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and South Asia and also historically predominant in Anatolia...
names in Baetica throughout the Roman era. Granada
Granada
Granada is a city and the capital of the province of Granada, in the autonomous community of Andalusia, Spain. Granada is located at the foot of the Sierra Nevada mountains, at the confluence of three rivers, the Beiro, the Darro and the Genil. It sits at an elevation of 738 metres above sea...
was called Eliberri, Illiberis and Illiber by the Romans; in Basque
Basque language
Basque is the ancestral language of the Basque people, who inhabit the Basque Country, a region spanning an area in northeastern Spain and southwestern France. It is spoken by 25.7% of Basques in all territories...
, "iri-berri" or "ili-berri", still signifies "new town".
The south of the Iberian peninsula was agriculturally rich, providing for export wine
Wine
Wine is an alcoholic beverage, made of fermented fruit juice, usually from grapes. The natural chemical balance of grapes lets them ferment without the addition of sugars, acids, enzymes, or other nutrients. Grape wine is produced by fermenting crushed grapes using various types of yeast. Yeast...
, olive oil
Olive oil
Olive oil is an oil obtained from the olive , a traditional tree crop of the Mediterranean Basin. It is commonly used in cooking, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, and soaps and as a fuel for traditional oil lamps...
and the fermented fish sauce called garum
Garum
Garum, similar to liquamen, was a type of fermented fish sauce condiment that was an essential flavour in Ancient Roman cooking, the supreme condiment....
that were staples of the Mediterranean diet, and its products formed part of the western Mediterranean trade economy even before it submitted to Rome in 206 BC. After the defeat of Carthage
Carthage
Carthage , implying it was a 'new Tyre') is a major urban centre that has existed for nearly 3,000 years on the Gulf of Tunis, developing from a Phoenician colony of the 1st millennium BC...
in the Second Punic War
Second Punic War
The Second Punic War, also referred to as The Hannibalic War and The War Against Hannibal, lasted from 218 to 201 BC and involved combatants in the western and eastern Mediterranean. This was the second major war between Carthage and the Roman Republic, with the participation of the Berbers on...
, which found its casus belli
Casus belli
is a Latin expression meaning the justification for acts of war. means "incident", "rupture" or indeed "case", while means bellic...
on the coast of Baetica at Saguntum, Hispania was significantly Romanized in the course of the 2nd century BC, following the uprising initiated by the Turdetani
Turdetani
The Turdetani were ancient people of the Iberian peninsula , living in the valley of the Guadalquivir in what was to become the Roman Province of Hispania Baetica...
in 197. The central and north-eastern Celtiberians
Celtiberians
The Celtiberians were Celtic-speaking people of the Iberian Peninsula in the final centuries BC. The group used the Celtic Celtiberian language.Archaeologically, the Celtiberians participated in the Hallstatt culture in what is now north-central Spain...
soon followed suit. It took Cato the Elder
Cato the Elder
Marcus Porcius Cato was a Roman statesman, commonly referred to as Censorius , Sapiens , Priscus , or Major, Cato the Elder, or Cato the Censor, to distinguish him from his great-grandson, Cato the Younger.He came of an ancient Plebeian family who all were noted for some...
, who became consul in 195 BC and was given the command of the whole peninsula to put down the rebellion in the northeast and the lower Ebro
Ebro
The Ebro or Ebre is one of the most important rivers in the Iberian Peninsula. It is the biggest river by discharge volume in Spain.The Ebro flows through the following cities:*Reinosa in Cantabria.*Miranda de Ebro in Castile and León....
valley. He then marched southwards and put down a revolt by the Turdetani. Cato returned to Rome in 194, leaving two praetor
Praetor
Praetor was a title granted by the government of Ancient Rome to men acting in one of two official capacities: the commander of an army, usually in the field, or the named commander before mustering the army; and an elected magistratus assigned varied duties...
s in charge of the two Iberian provinces. In the late Roman Republic
Roman Republic
The Roman Republic was the period of the ancient Roman civilization where the government operated as a republic. It began with the overthrow of the Roman monarchy, traditionally dated around 508 BC, and its replacement by a government headed by two consuls, elected annually by the citizens and...
, Hispania remained divided like Gaul
Gaul
Gaul was a region of Western Europe during the Iron Age and Roman era, encompassing present day France, Luxembourg and Belgium, most of Switzerland, the western part of Northern Italy, as well as the parts of the Netherlands and Germany on the left bank of the Rhine. The Gauls were the speakers of...
into a "Nearer" and a "Farther" province, as experienced marching overland from Gaul: Hispania Citerior (the Ebro region), and Ulterior (the Guadalquivir region). The battles in Hispania during the 1st century BC were largely confined to the north.
In the reorganization of the Empire in 14 BC, when Hispania was remade into the three Imperial province
Imperial province
An imperial province was a Roman province where the Emperor had the sole right to appoint the governor . These provinces were often the strategically located border provinces....
s, Baetica was governed by a proconsul
Proconsul
A proconsul was a governor of a province in the Roman Republic appointed for one year by the senate. In modern usage, the title has been used for a person from one country ruling another country or bluntly interfering in another country's internal affairs.-Ancient Rome:In the Roman Republic, a...
who had formerly been a praetor
Praetor
Praetor was a title granted by the government of Ancient Rome to men acting in one of two official capacities: the commander of an army, usually in the field, or the named commander before mustering the army; and an elected magistratus assigned varied duties...
. Fortune smiled on rich Baetica, which was Baetica Felix, and a dynamic, upwardly-mobile social and economic middling stratum developed there, which absorbed freed slaves and far outnumbered the rich elite
Elite
Elite refers to an exceptional or privileged group that wields considerable power within its sphere of influence...
. The Senatorial province of Baetica became so secure that no Roman legion
Roman legion
A Roman legion normally indicates the basic ancient Roman army unit recruited specifically from Roman citizens. The organization of legions varied greatly over time but they were typically composed of perhaps 5,000 soldiers, divided into maniples and later into "cohorts"...
was required to be permanently stationed there. Legio VII Gemina was permanently stationed to the north, in Hispania Tarraconensis
Hispania Tarraconensis
Hispania Tarraconensis was one of three Roman provinces in Hispania. It encompassed much of the Mediterranean coast of Spain along with the central plateau. Southern Spain, the region now called Andalusia, was the province of Hispania Baetica...
.
Hispania Baetica was divided into four conventūs, which were territorial divisions like judicial circuits, where the chief men met together at major centers, at fixed times of year, under the eye of the proconsul, to oversee the administration of justice: the conventus Gaditanus (of Gades, or Cádiz
Cádiz
Cadiz is a city and port in southwestern Spain. It is the capital of the homonymous province, one of eight which make up the autonomous community of Andalusia....
), Cordubensis (of Cordoba
Córdoba, Spain
-History:The first trace of human presence in the area are remains of a Neanderthal Man, dating to c. 32,000 BC. In the 8th century BC, during the ancient Tartessos period, a pre-urban settlement existed. The population gradually learned copper and silver metallurgy...
), Astigitanus (of Astigi, or Écija
Écija
Écija is a city belonging to the province of Seville, Spain. It is located in the Andalusian countryside, 85 km east of the city of Seville. According to the 2008 census, Écija has a total population of 40,100 inhabitants, ranking as the fifth most populous city in the province...
), and Hispalensis (of Hispalis, or Seville
Seville
Seville is the artistic, historic, cultural, and financial capital of southern Spain. It is the capital of the autonomous community of Andalusia and of the province of Seville. It is situated on the plain of the River Guadalquivir, with an average elevation of above sea level...
). As the towns became the permanent seats of standing courts during the later Empire, the conventūs
Conventus iuridicus
In Ancient Rome territorial organization, a conventus iuridicus was the capital city of a subdivision of some provinces with functions of seat of a district court of justice and maybe others.-External links:...
were superseded (Justinian's Code, i.40.6) and the term conventus is lastly applied to certain bodies of Roman citizens living in a province, forming a sort of enfranchised corporation, and representing the Roman people in their district as a kind of gentry
Gentry
Gentry denotes "well-born and well-bred people" of high social class, especially in the past....
; and it was from among these that proconsuls generally took their assistants. So in spite of some social upsets, as when Septimus Severus put to death a number of leading Baetians— including women— the elite in Baetica remained a stable class for centuries.
Columella
Columella
Lucius Junius Moderatus Columella is the most important writer on agriculture of the Roman empire. Little is known of his life. He was probably born in Gades , possibly of Roman parents. After a career in the army , he took up farming...
, who wrote a twelve volume treatise on all aspects of Roman farming and knew viticulture
Viticulture
Viticulture is the science, production and study of grapes which deals with the series of events that occur in the vineyard. When the grapes are used for winemaking, it is also known as viniculture...
, came from Baetica. The vast olive
Olive
The olive , Olea europaea), is a species of a small tree in the family Oleaceae, native to the coastal areas of the eastern Mediterranean Basin as well as northern Iran at the south end of the Caspian Sea.Its fruit, also called the olive, is of major agricultural importance in the...
plantations of Baetica shipped olive oil from the coastal ports by sea to supply Roman legions in Germania
Germania
Germania was the Greek and Roman geographical term for the geographical regions inhabited by mainly by peoples considered to be Germani. It was most often used to refer especially to the east of the Rhine and north of the Danube...
. Amphora
Amphora
An amphora is a type of vase-shaped, usually ceramic container with two handles and a long neck narrower than the body...
s from Baetica have been found everywhere in the Western Roman empire
Western Roman Empire
The Western Roman Empire was the western half of the Roman Empire after its division by Diocletian in 285; the other half of the Roman Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire, commonly referred to today as the Byzantine Empire....
. It was to keep Roman legions supplied by sea routes that the Empire needed to control the distant coasts of Lusitania and the northern Atlantic coast
Atlantic Ocean
The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions. With a total area of about , it covers approximately 20% of the Earth's surface and about 26% of its water surface area...
of Hispania.
Baetica was rich and utterly Romanized, facts that the Emperor Vespasian
Vespasian
Vespasian , was Roman Emperor from 69 AD to 79 AD. Vespasian was the founder of the Flavian dynasty, which ruled the Empire for a quarter century. Vespasian was descended from a family of equestrians, who rose into the senatorial rank under the Emperors of the Julio-Claudian dynasty...
was rewarding when he granted the Ius latii
Latin Right
Latin Rights was a civic status given by the Romans, intermediate between full Roman citizenship and non-citizen status , and extended originally to the people of Latium . The most important Latin Rights were commercium, connubium, and ius migrationis...
that extended the rights pertaining to Roman citizenship (latinitas
Latin Right
Latin Rights was a civic status given by the Romans, intermediate between full Roman citizenship and non-citizen status , and extended originally to the people of Latium . The most important Latin Rights were commercium, connubium, and ius migrationis...
) to the inhabitants of Hispania, an honor that secured the loyalty of the Baetian elite and its middle class. The Roman Emperor Trajan
Trajan
Trajan , was Roman Emperor from 98 to 117 AD. Born into a non-patrician family in the province of Hispania Baetica, in Spain Trajan rose to prominence during the reign of emperor Domitian. Serving as a legatus legionis in Hispania Tarraconensis, in Spain, in 89 Trajan supported the emperor against...
, the first emperor of provincial birth, came from Baetica, though of Italian stock, and his kinsman and successor Hadrian
Hadrian
Hadrian , was Roman Emperor from 117 to 138. He is best known for building Hadrian's Wall, which marked the northern limit of Roman Britain. In Rome, he re-built the Pantheon and constructed the Temple of Venus and Roma. In addition to being emperor, Hadrian was a humanist and was philhellene in...
came from a family resident in Baetica, though Hadrian himself was born at Rome (which however some say he made up Hadrian#cite note-5). Baetia was Roman until the brief invasion of the Vandals and Alans
Alans
The Alans, or the Alani, occasionally termed Alauni or Halani, were a group of Sarmatian tribes, nomadic pastoralists of the 1st millennium AD who spoke an Eastern Iranian language which derived from Scytho-Sarmatian and which in turn evolved into modern Ossetian.-Name:The various forms of Alan —...
passed through in the 5th century, followed by the more permanent kingdom of the Visigoth
Visigoth
The Visigoths were one of two main branches of the Goths, the Ostrogoths being the other. These tribes were among the Germans who spread through the late Roman Empire during the Migration Period...
s. The province formed part of the Exarchate of Africa
Exarchate of Africa
The Exarchate of Africa or of Carthage, after its capital, was the name of an administrative division of the Eastern Roman Empire encompassing its possessions on the Western Mediterranean, ruled by an exarch, or viceroy...
and was joined to Mauretania Tingitana
Mauretania Tingitana
Mauretania Tingitana was a Roman province located in northwestern Africa, coinciding roughly with the northern part of present-day Morocco. The province extended from the northern peninsula, opposite Gibraltar, to Chellah and Volubilis to the south, and as far east as the Oued Laou river. Its...
after Belisarius
Belisarius
Flavius Belisarius was a general of the Byzantine Empire. He was instrumental to Emperor Justinian's ambitious project of reconquering much of the Mediterranean territory of the former Western Roman Empire, which had been lost less than a century previously....
' reconquest of Africa. The Catholic bishop
Bishop
A bishop is an ordained or consecrated member of the Christian clergy who is generally entrusted with a position of authority and oversight. Within the Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox Churches, in the Assyrian Church of the East, in the Independent Catholic Churches, and in the...
s of Baetica, solidly backed by their local population, were able to convert the Arian
Arianism
Arianism is the theological teaching attributed to Arius , a Christian presbyter from Alexandria, Egypt, concerning the relationship of the entities of the Trinity and the precise nature of the Son of God as being a subordinate entity to God the Father...
Visigoth king Reccared
Reccared
Reccared I was Visigothic King of Hispania, Septimania and Galicia. His reign marked a climactic shift in history, with the king's renunciation of traditional Arianism in favour of Catholic Christianity in 587.Reccared was the younger son of King Liuvigild by his first wife Theodosia...
and his nobles. In the 8th century the Islam
Islam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
ic Berbers
Berber people
Berbers are the indigenous peoples of North Africa west of the Nile Valley. They are continuously distributed from the Atlantic to the Siwa oasis, in Egypt, and from the Mediterranean to the Niger River. Historically they spoke the Berber language or varieties of it, which together form a branch...
("Moors") of North Africa
North Africa
North Africa or Northern Africa is the northernmost region of the African continent, linked by the Sahara to Sub-Saharan Africa. Geopolitically, the United Nations definition of Northern Africa includes eight countries or territories; Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, South Sudan, Sudan, Tunisia, and...
established the Caliphate of Cordoba
Caliphate of Córdoba
The Caliphate of Córdoba ruled the Iberian peninsula and part of North Africa, from the city of Córdoba, from 929 to 1031. This period was characterized by remarkable success in trade and culture; many of the masterpieces of Islamic Iberia were constructed in this period, including the famous...
conquering Baetica. The region was known to them as "al-Andalus", under which name its later history is continued.
The early 20th century composer Manuel de Falla
Manuel de Falla
Manuel de Falla y Matheu was a Spanish Andalusian composer of classical music. With Isaac Albéniz, Enrique Granados and Joaquín Turina he is one of Spain's most important musicians of the first half of the 20th century....
wrote a Fantasia Baetica for piano
Piano
The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
, using Andalusian melodies.
See also
- Pre-Roman peoples of the Iberian PeninsulaPre-Roman peoples of the Iberian PeninsulaThis is a list of the Pre-Roman peoples of the Iberian peninsula .-Non-Indo-European:*Aquitanians**Aquitani**Autrigones - some consider them Celtic .**Caristii - some consider them Celtic ....
- Romanization of HispaniaRomanization of HispaniaThe Romanization of Hispania is the process by which the Roman culture was introduced into the Iberian Peninsula during the period of Roman rule over it, or parts of it.- Introduction :...
- SpaniaSpaniaSpania was a province of the Roman Empire from 552 until 624 in the south of the Iberian Peninsula and the Balearic Islands. It was a part of the conquests of Roman Emperor Justinian I in an effort to restore the western half of the Empire....